Tautog Fishing Tips

Last week, you may have seen my post on rigging for tautog (http://www.boats.com/boat-content/2010/04/rigging-for-tautog-fishing/) And we put those tog fishing tips to work yesterday, 12 miles off the coast on a wreck out of Ocean City. Since it was a successful adventure, it seemed appropriate to follow up this week with some tips that go beyond [...]

12th April 2010.By Lenny Rudow

Last week, you may have seen my post on rigging for tautog (http://www.boats.com/boat-content/2010/04/rigging-for-tautog-fishing/) And we put those tog fishing tips to work yesterday, 12 miles off the coast on a wreck out of Ocean City. Since it was a successful adventure, it seemed appropriate to follow up this week with some tips that go beyond rigging.

First off I need to give credit where credit is due; I’m no tog sharpie, but we had John Unkart (the author of Offshore Pursuit,) onboard, and he led the way. Here are three top tips he shared with us, which helped make the day a success:

1. Anchor over the wreck, then slack off line until your boat sits just past the edge of it. You’ll catch more tog with your bait sitting right next to the wreck then you will with it sitting on top of the wreck.

2. Keep your bait dead on bottom. Since wrecks have so many snags it’s tempting to raise your rig off the bottom a bit and suspend it. Do so, and you won’t get as many snags… but you also won’t catch any fish.

3. Small tog travel around and could hit any time, but large tog don’t like to come out of the wreck, they sit inside of it. If you want to catch a whopper – like the 8.5 pounder Max caught yesterday, shown here, the best bet is to drop your rig inside of a hole or opening in the wreck. Of course, this can be tough to do (and leads to even more snags and break-offs) so constantly re-positioning the boat until you can find such a hole or opening is necessary.

Lenny Rudow

Profile

Lenny Rudow is Senior Editor for Dominion Marine Media, including boats.com and YachtWorld. With over two decades of experience in marine journalism, he has contributed to publications including Boating Magazine, Marlin Magazine, Boating World, Saltwater Sportsman, Texas Fish & Game, and many others. Lenny is a graduate of the Westlawn School of Yacht Design, and he has won numerous BWI and OWAA writing awards.